Not a tumble drier fire! So the American says!

[flameport]

the impedance of the wiring, not the loads.

Wiring and the supply to individual properties, a popular method in the USA being a small pole mounted transformer for each building, compared to the UK where a typical supply is from a much larger transformer connected to multiple properties.
By design the large transformer can supply far more current, and if a fault such as a short circuit occurs, the fault current will be high and trip circuit breakers/fuses very quickly.

 

[JohnW2]

Wiring and the supply to individual properties, a popular method in the USA being a small pole mounted transformer for each building, compared to the UK where a typical supply is from a much larger transformer connected to multiple properties. By design the large transformer can supply far more current, and if a fault such as a short circuit occurs, the fault current will be high and trip circuit breakers/fuses very quickly.

Thanks for confirming. That's what I thought you meant.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ub7rm]

The towels were from a restaurant apparently? More likely to have oil or grease on them, it also would depend on the quantity?

DS

Not exactly, they were on on a boat. In one of the cases some of the cloths had been used to clean up a cooking oil spillage in the galley. I think the other case was oil from coveralls. Less likely scenario's in a domestic setting, and the tumble driers were likely commercial grade machines that heat to a higher temperature. Certainly in my experience the crew laundry's on these type of vessels first boil the clothes then practically roast them. Never take good clothes or synthetic fabrics offshore with you...

I can't find it now but there was another incident of a similar nature where there was no heavy staining involved and was deemed to have happened because the steward took the clothes out of the drier before it had started its cool down cycle then stacked them all up in a cupboard. The residual head with no airflow was deemed to have been enough.

So maybe less likely to occur in a domestic setting, but far from fantasy. Using a cloth to clean up some vegetable oil that spilt, 'if its not dirty was it at 30', tumble drier not finished its cycle but clothes dry and pull them out early, stack them up... its possible.

I'm not commenting on probability or the individual case here but just looking to raise awareness that it can happen.